Vice President Kamala Harris attacked Ron DeSantis over the African-American history curriculum in Florida, claiming that state officials want to “gaslight” students by teaching fallacies and that “… enslaved people benefited from slavery.”
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Let’s think about what the Vice President is alleging. Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse in which a person or group causes someone to question their own sanity, memories, or perception of reality. Do the curricula attempt to do this? Are the people who made the curricula attempting to do this?
And separately, if the curriculum does not teach that, would that have any bearing on the credibility of the allegation?
One specific standard says teachers should examine “the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).” The added “benchmark clarification” explains, “instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Ron DeSantis did not write the African-American history curriculum in Florida. Maybe that has a bearing on whether this smear was something other than a false, mean, cheap shot at a political opponent but the claim set off a firestorm of Leftist outrage that is not worth the bandwidth it was transmitted on.
Monday, Ron DeSantis, not one to let a smear slide, issued a direct challenge to Ms. Harris. He invited Harris to Tallahassee to discuss the standards with prominent scholar Dr. William Allen. Dr. Allen is a former chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and helped craft the standards. He is also a descendant of slaves and has defended the standards vigorously.
Dr. William Allen is who Ms. Harris attacked.
DeSantis wrote in a letter to Harris that, “It’s past time to set the record straight… In Florida, we are unafraid to have an open and honest dialogue about the issues. And you clearly have no trouble ducking down to Florida on short notice.”
“So given your grave concern (which, I must assume, is sincere) about what you think our standards say, I am officially inviting you back down to Florida to discuss our African American History standards. We will be happy to host you here in Tallahassee… I will ask Dr. William Allen — instrumental in the development of our impressive new standards — to join. We welcome you, of course, to bring Randi Weingarten or someone else who shares your view about the standards.”
A meeting would not appear to be logistically difficult. DeSantis said he is prepared to meet as early as Wednesday and Harris is scheduled to speak in Orlando on Tuesday, before traveling to Wisconsin on Thursday.
A short turnaround time is not difficult for Harris because, according to CNN, Harris’ team “quickly arranged” the trip to Florida, where she launched her attack against DeSantis and the new curriculum.
Valid criticism should be addressed. Political rhetoric should be ignored. When has V.P. Harris said anything that wasn’t political rhetoric? Vice President Harris spends most of her time making word salad for the amusement of grade schoolers.
It will be interesting to see VP Harris sit down for a serious curriculum discussion with Dr. Allen. Want to bet a nickel on whether she shows up? My nickel says she’s a mouthy coward not willing to defend her words.
